The graph with this article shows the R drifting slightly down from just under 4 from the 12th of March, then falling dramatically from the 24th of March.
We do not know how many infections we had then, but even if you just take those that had tested positive it was a lot and rising quickly - hence the R of just under 4.
which article?Originally Posted by Mike T
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
I think I've seen the graph you are referring to from Imperial College - it is reproduced in this article.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...efore-lockdown
How did they know? It must have been pure guesswork since as WP points out there were so few tests being carried out. What we can now do is look at hospital admissions and deaths and work backwards. This is what Bristol University has done to calculate that peak infection was before lockdown and that the R rate was coming down quickly by the day of lockdown.
Logically the Imperial College Graph makes no sense since it implies that all the social distancing actions people were taking in the days before 24th March had next to no effect on the rate of infection. How likely is that?
As the article says, the Norwegians also believe that their infections had peaked before lockdown.
The jury is out on that. I think that is far too simplistic.
Many country comparisons don’t stack up.
Eg Portugal was more lax than Spain or us, with similar timing but did better than both.
CV was certainly alive and well in Portugal long before lockdown.
The french discovered it in retested samples from november.
Because it can be assymptomatic , and the Chinese kept quiet it was *everywhere* before it was acknowledged.
We have a lot to learn.
Last edited by Oracle; 24-06-2020 at 12:22 PM.
The problem with that graph, assuming an R rate of 4, slipping to 3.6 ish by lockdown then 0.7 ish until end April is the maths.
Start date 16/1 with 1 person and an R of 4, 85 would have been infected by end Jan. By end Feb that would be 350,000 and by mid March we'd be up to 19.5 million.
(Didn't Oxford say 50% of the population?)
Then if we taper to 2.5 and 0.7 over the next 10 day period and remain at 0.7 until end April the sum total of infections would be 134 million by the end of April.
Now in all honesty, I don't think the graph is far away. We probably did have huge spread without knowing it.
But if you present this graph from Imperial and this profile of R=4 up to 10/3 approx. then dropping to R=0.7 by 23/3 approx then you also have to accept that somehow we have herd immunity now, regardless of what the anti-body tests are coming up with.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
I really really doubt we have herd immunity, unless perhaps a little in London and immediate surrounds. The recent meat processing plant outbreak in Anglesey had a 40% infected rate didn’t it?
Last edited by Fellbeast; 24-06-2020 at 01:24 PM.
You just clipped it out of context.
if you present this graph from Imperial and this profile of R=4 up to 10/3 approx. then dropping to R=0.7 by 23/3 approx then you also have to accept that somehow we have herd immunity now, regardless of what the anti-body tests are coming up with.
By herd immunity, as a layperson on these matters, I refer to a resistance, not necessarily anti-bodies.
The example in Anglesey, a similar one in Germany, one at a party in Lagos, Western Algarve in the last week.... all examples that show the virus spreads rapidly - we only know this because we can now test extensively.
So I say again, I lean towards cases in the UK in January, spread rapidly through a largely unsuspecting population, mainly affecting those working/socialising and also least likely to develop symptoms.
There seems a lot of evidence to back it up. The report Muddy refers to, the old assessment by Oxford.
The only doubt is cast by the lack of anti-bodies being found in the population.
If the testing had come back with a 40-50% figure for anti-bodies that would have looked plausible considering the stats we have.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
I don’t follow you Witton. The value of R has dropped due to lockdown pure and simple and not to any recognisable extent by the building up of herd immunity. That’s what I think anyway
It's not pure and simple at all. Take the Prof from Bristol Uni who has asserted that it started dropping around 16th March as MR and I have previously mentioned.
But let me try and explain myself.
The assertion was that we had an R of 4, lockdown came and then and R of 0.7 with perhaps 1-2 weeks for R to make the transition.
So R of 4 day 1, 1 person.
Day 5 = 4 new people, 5 total
Day 46 = 262k new people, 350k total
Day 61 = 14.3 million people, 19.6 million total.
Day 61 is around the time when we were starting to distance.
So forget lockdown for a minute. If R was 4, and first infection mid Jan, then by mid March we have 1/3 of the population infected.
That is from 1 person, and of course there would have been a daily drip of new infections with people coming in from Wuhan, the Dolomites, France....
So was R 4, or was it nowhere near that level? If it was 4, then we would have had herd immunity kicking in mid March and the dropping might not be due to lockdown at all.
If R was <3, then these experts need to go back to school.
Last edited by Witton Park; 24-06-2020 at 05:02 PM.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
B&B's and hotels able to open from July 4th if they wish. My regular place will be open that very day... which (all being well) makes for a promising July!
