Coronavirus

[Witton Park]

What's the evidence for this?

we covered it on the forum way back, probably June.

The high point for fatalities was April 8th (by date of death - reporting high point I think was 10th) and there is a 4 week lag from infection.

April 8th minus 4 weeks gives us a high point for infections around 10th March.

Partial lockdown 21st March (pubs) and full lockdown announced 23rd March evening effective 24th and the effect on infections wouldn't be feeding through until 1st week April and the effect on deaths would not feed through until 20th April.
By then deaths had been falling for almost 2 weeks.

Friday 20th, wife was working as normal in her factory with no measures other than hand sanitising points. Shops were open.

The main earlier effects had been cancelling of flights to overseas destinations from around a week earlier and schools had closed that week prior to pubs closing.
But pre 10th March we really had done diddly squat and pre 21st/23rd it was lockdown light.

A paper was published by a Bristol Professor late Spring charting the peak infections pre lockdown and SAGE have assessed the high point of cases in March at up to 100,000 a day - I personally suspect it was higher - but we didn't have testing among the general public then.

I hope my summary helps.

[noel]

we covered it on the forum way back, probably June.

The high point for fatalities was April 8th (by date of death - reporting high point I think was 10th) and there is a 4 week lag from infection.

April 8th minus 4 weeks gives us a high point for infections around 10th March.

Partial lockdown 21st March (pubs) and full lockdown announced 23rd March evening effective 24th and the effect on infections wouldn't be feeding through until 1st week April and the effect on deaths would not feed through until 20th April.
By then deaths had been falling for almost 2 weeks.

Friday 20th, wife was working as normal in her factory with no measures other than hand sanitising points. Shops were open.

The main earlier effects had been cancelling of flights to overseas destinations from around a week earlier and schools had closed that week prior to pubs closing.
But pre 10th March we really had done diddly squat and pre 21st/23rd it was lockdown light.

A paper was published by a Bristol Professor late Spring charting the peak infections pre lockdown and SAGE have assessed the high point of cases in March at up to 100,000 a day - I personally suspect it was higher - but we didn't have testing among the general public then.

I hope my summary helps.

Thanks WP. I wasn't paying much attention to this thread back then.

The high point of deaths was April 14th, looking at the 7-day moving average: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Which is about 4 weeks from the start of what I agree was "lock-down light", but quickly phased into full lock-down a few days later.

Are you suggesting rates would have come down anyway without lock-down?

[Muddy Retriever]

Thanks WP. I wasn't paying much attention to this thread back then.

The high point of deaths was April 14th, looking at the 7-day moving average: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Which is about 4 weeks from the start of what I agree was "lock-down light", but quickly phased into full lock-down a few days later.

Are you suggesting rates would have come down anyway without lock-down?

Worldometer shows deaths by reporting date, which is fair enough if you want to make a comparison between countries. But as with cases, there is a lag between actual and reporting dates.

The peak date in the UK for when deaths actually occurred was 8th April.UK deaths by actual date.JPG

It is also the same date if you look at England on its own.

Perhaps lockdown hastened the speed that infections reduced. But it does seem that infections had started falling before lockdown.

[bigfella]

There is an assumption above that death occurs 4 weeks after infection, how accurate is that figure and what difference would it make to the assertions if it was actually closer to 3 weeks.

[Muddy Retriever]

There is an assumption above that death occurs 4 weeks after infection, how accurate is that figure and what difference would it make to the assertions if it was actually closer to 3 weeks.

I saw a TV presentation a couple of weeks ago by some NHS guy, I can't remember his name. (It was in the week following Witty/Vallance and Boris announcing lockdown.) On his slides he showed a range of days for each stage in the cycle of the disease. From what I recall the average was 5 days for infection to symptoms and around 23 days from symptoms to death. But looking online it is hard to find any definitive timeline for Covid. I think I've also read 21 days rather than 23 but I can't remember where.

[Muddy Retriever]

I saw a TV presentation a couple of weeks ago by some NHS guy, I can't remember his name. (It was in the week following Witty/Vallance and Boris announcing lockdown.) On his slides he showed a range of days for each stage in the cycle of the disease. From what I recall the average was 5 days for infection to symptoms and around 23 days from symptoms to death.

Here we go, I've found it. It was 4th November.

First slide.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavir...ss-conference/

[bigfella]

From the first slide, "15 - 30 days from infection to death or discharge" so the mid-point is closer to 3 than 4 weeks assuming that death / discharge have the same even distribution throughout the range.

Would a 3 week lapse suggest that lockdown had a more significant impact?

[Muddy Retriever]

From the first slide, "15 - 30 days from infection to death or discharge" so the mid-point is closer to 3 than 4 weeks assuming that death / discharge have the same even distribution throughout the range.

Would a 3 week lapse suggest that lockdown had a more significant impact?

Yes that's true, I've read it (or added it up) wrongly.

It is more like 23 days rather than 28. On the basis of that it would make peak infection date 16th March. So yes it does change things a little. But it would still indicate that infections were falling before lockdown, which came into effect on 24th March.

[Fellbeast]

I’m still not getting the point you’re trying to make Witton. All you’ve effectively shown is that lockdowns suppress the virus, a lack of them doesn’t and something restrictiony in between suppresses it a bit. We already know that thanks

[noel]

Worldometer shows deaths by reporting date, which is fair enough if you want to make a comparison between countries. But as with cases, there is a lag between actual and reporting dates.

The peak date in the UK for when deaths actually occurred was 8th April.UK deaths by actual date.JPG

Thanks Muddy, I was not aware of that.