8 ms·

Important and underexamined question. What happened in the UK?

JetSetWilly 5y ago
Probably schools and universities being closed. I'd support this by noting that the numbers in Scotland surged earlier then started declining earlier (where universities and schools go on summer holidays weeks before England). When English schools later broke up for summer, numbers there started declining too. So no doubt numbers will start going up again when school returns, and will do so first in Scotland - as the virus burns through the young, unvaccinated population.
- gsnedders 5y ago
  Not sure it's quite this simple; look at the overall case by specimen and age demographics graphs on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=England https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=natio... (England only, because the data for rUK isn't available). Note the peak is around a week _prior_ the end of the school term in England (23 July), and this is true across basically all age groups.
  - shawabawa3 5y ago
    The Euro finals were on 11th July and for a lot of schools the holidays started on the 15th July
  - drcongo 5y ago
    Most of England's private schools broke up one week prior to the state schools.
    - de_keyboard 5y ago
      Most children don't go to private schools.
    - richardwhiuk 5y ago
      Only 6% of the population attend private school.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  But if it rose earlier and fell earlier, the simplest explanation is simply that the course of the disease was... earlier there, isn't it?
  - JetSetWilly 5y ago
    It is possible, but there's still large cohorts of the population (ie under 18s) who have not had the virus and are not vaccinated, you would expect that when they go back to large scale mixing in schools together that transmission will increase among them and case numbers will go up. And this isn't really an issue so long as the overwhelming majority of the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. But there still the potential for scary looking case numbers but not so much death numbers.
- 3dbrows 5y ago
  The staggered school return times you mention could be one factor (as could better weather resulting in outdoor socialising instead of indoor). The effect when schools return (~2 weeks from now in Scotland) might be muted however as hundreds of thousands more vaccinations will have been done in the parent-age population. In Scotland, for example, over 90% of adults have received the first dose, and 72% the second (implying that ~18% are in the waiting period for the 2nd). Perhaps we should expect to see a spike in cases in children, but not so much among their parents.
  - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
    Did we not see the same effect last year (probably for the reasons you mentioned)? Numbers declined in summer, but then massively rose again in Oct-Nov. I think this Autumn will reveal whether the vaccinations are giving us the protection needed to gradually open up society again. For my part I really hope it does, as it will also encourage other countries to do the same and give the vaccination campaign a worldwide boost.
    - 3dbrows 5y ago
      Let’s hope the peak just gone is the last big spike. In the final analysis I imagine the British public’s _willingness_ to get the jab will be seen as an enormous success factor, on top of the vaccine itself’s efficacy. This willingness merits study. High social trust of the NHS, historic common understanding of vaccines and everyone knowing someone affected by the virus all play their part. As an aside, I believe this to have been the NHS’ finest hour, and in future “the pandemic” will replace “the war” as the lynchpin reference point in time, as it were.
      - makomk 5y ago
        The UK government definitely seems to consider the British public's willingness to get vaccinated to be one of the key parts of the success story, from what I've seen. I will also say that their handling of issues like the AstraZeneca blood clotting issue has been really good compared to the shitshows elsewhere - careful, measured, with really clear communication about what they know and why it justifies the decisions about whether to vaccinate people with it.
jjgreen 5y ago
The collapse (unexpected by almost everyone) happened after "freedom day", when masks were no longer mandatory and it became legal to stand at the bar in a pub. Probably co-incidence.
- lumost 5y ago
  There are many coincidences and spurious correlations in the world. It's informative to propose a falsifiable mechanism behind a correlation which can be tested independently. I could reframe your hypothesis in a falsifiable way such as "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused individuals to spend more time outdoors or in open air restaurants rather than smaller closed doors activities such as dinner parties", or "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused people to spend more time in other locations rather than large shared ventilation apartment complexes".
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    I make no hypothesis, simply note the order in which things happened (in England at least) as requested by the parent.
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  The drop actually started before freedom day. There's usually about a 2 week period between "cause" and "effect" in terms of cases anyway. It's much more likely to have peaked because of Euro finals on 11th July and school holidays starting on 15th July
- GuB-42 5y ago
  It has to be a coincidence. It happened almost the exact day, maybe even a little earlier. It should take about a week to start seeing the effect of a change in policy. From incubation time to testing to results. Usually, we count two weeks to be sure.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    The day restrictions were lifted was itself postponed from the previous month. Modelling was used to predict the day. It could be coincidence but this date was planned and intentional.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Lots of people either being vaccinated or infected seems like it would play a big role.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Probably both. We should remember what was the 1st approach to the Covid problem by Johnson (that is, well over one year ago): he wanted to achieve herd immunity without having enough vaccines or not having them at all, and initially there were no imposed lockdowns or infection prevention rules. The point is that along the extremely high death toll caused by that approach, a huge percentage of people over there might have caught the virus without symptoms, therefore becoming immune to a 2nd infection or at least immune to nasty symptoms. So it's entirely possible that the herd immunity was eventually achieved, although many, including me, would agree the price to pay has been not fair.
  - Imnimo 5y ago
    I don't really see how the level of immunity could be low enough in June to allow rapid growth, and then suddenly be high enough in mid-July to cause rapid decline. Wouldn't we expect a population close to herd immunity to see slow growth, and a population just over herd immunity to see a slow decline?
    - tsywke44 5y ago
      If 70% of your population is vaccinated, it doesnt mean the virus spreads 70% slower. It instead means that there are 20 million potential virus hosts in the UK instead of 67m. Way more than the population of lots of EU countries.
      - Imnimo 5y ago
        I think it does mean that the virus spreads slower (although the exact amount will also depend on factors like how vaccinated people are distributed among the population). Whereas in an unvaccinated population, each infected person might spread the virus to (say) five others, in a 70% vaccinated population, on average 3.5 of those others would be vaccinated, so the virus would only spread to 1.5 others. This gives a slower rate of growth. Once that rate of growth falls below 1, herd immunity is achieved. When you are close to herd immunity, that rate should be just a little above 1, leading to slow but positive growth.
zarzavat 5y ago
Choose your own adventure, coronavirus edition. You have coronavirus symptoms. During the middle of a surge in cases, the government has announced that all coronavirus restrictions have ended and everybody can go back to normal. The vast majority of older and vulnerable people have been fully vaccinated. Do you: A: get a test and risk having to isolate B: not get a test and live your life like normal as the government said you should
- sprkwd 5y ago
  Anecdotally, everybody I know has deleted the app from their phone so they can’t get pinged and live their life reasonably normally.
  - karol 5y ago
    Anecdotally, I never installed it for the same reason.
    - BoxOfRain 5y ago
      I wonder how much is post-Snowden distrust of government software and how much is simply not wanting to be pinged?
      - jokethrowaway 5y ago
        Definitely both. I would install it if it meant free paid holiday from work but I'm not employed and if I were I could probably work from home.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
joelschw 5y ago
The national football team also did really well in the Euro competition - this forced a lot of drunk people indoors and onto public transport.
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
  And also in to pubs...
ddek 5y ago
Tentative signs the virus has burned out, either through infections or vaccinations. The wave has been entirely confined to the younger age brackets who are far less vaccinated.[1] Being in central London right now, through anecdotal evidence I don't think we've suddenly become less sociable. - [1] UK infections grouped by age. School years 6, 7, 11, and 12 are ages 11, 12, 17, and 18 respectively. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections#infections-by-age https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
- wrboyce 5y ago
  I don’t think those ages are right (the maths do not follow, so I’m almost certain they are not). In y11 you turn 16, not 17. https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum
  - ddek 5y ago
    Your right, I forgot about y13 being the last year. Y11 is GCSE year which ends at 16. I’m not sure why the the age brackets don’t go up to Y13, when school ends.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  The Massachusetts study is rather confusing about delta and vaccination, but I think it emphasizes that demographics of who is socializing is skewed. So it might have burned out among those in the nightlife and still be highly dangerous among pensioners.
  - perardi 5y ago
    I know the demographics of who were socializing. It’s very skewed. Friends and acquaintances of mine. I have some doubts about how generalizable the results are. A circuit party is not a produce aisle.
tsywke44 5y ago
Night clubs opened and were PACKED, a lot of young people were unvaccinated, causing hundreds of superspreader events every night for a few weeks. The % of total population who actually visits nightclubs is pretty low, so it took like a monh for this segment to hit herd immunity basically
- tsywke44 5y ago
  Also lots of previously vaccinated people were exposed, but didn’t get infected. Doesn’t mean their immune system did nothing though. I’d wager a lot of UK population basically got an ”organic 3rd vaccine dose”. My prediction is they have probably the highest immunity rates in the world atm
  - bostik 5y ago
    > a lot of UK population basically got an ”organic 3rd vaccine dose”. Isn't that how the vaccination regime is supposed to work, actually? With two jabs in, contracting Covid still comes with something like 4%..20% hit rate.[ß] However, with two jabs the risk of hospitalisation is mercifully low, and roughly half of the cases are asymptomatic. So instead of vaccinated people overloading the NHS, when they do get unlucky, they are much more likely to get through with only mild symptoms. For majority that "organic 3rd dose" works as a booster shot. They can still infect others, though... NB. As far as I know, there are no good studies on how Long Covid manifests in a vaccinated population. I think the working assumption is that very mild symptomatic Covid also ends up with less severe Long Covid, but have heard of no data to back that up. ß: Depending on the study, the vaccine in question and the variant. IIRC 2xPfizer provides ~88% protection against Delta, 95%+ against earlier non-Beta variants; 2xAstraZeneca provides 60%+ protection against Delta, 90%+ against non-Betas. Disclosure: UK resident, with two jabs.
    - mattlondon 5y ago
      As far as I know, long covid is directly related to how sick you get. you hear all these stories of people being bed bound for a week or more, high fever, struggling to breathe, etc etc. I'd think it sounds quite a lot like those people were really rather ill. I don't think people should expect to go back to running marathons or whatever a week after fighting to survive It's the same for flu and other major viral infections. It can take a while to get back to full health - I don't think covid is anything new here? Just the usual "you almost died"?
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
People reading the news and individually deciding to be slightly more careful again.
danenania 5y ago
Oh fun: the game where everyone puts their pet biases forward in an attempt to explain the behavior of a poorly understood complex system. It reminds me of the financial news. "Commodities markets are spooked as backlash to latest Justin Bieber video mounts!" In all seriousness, apart from the vaccination rate and strictly enforced lockdowns, I have yet to see an explanation for cases going up or down in a particular region that isn't contradicted by the results in some other region. I think we should just admit that except for vaccines and physically forcing 90% of the population into isolation, we don't have a clue what works and what doesn't.
- neves 5y ago
  There's a lot of evidence about what worked what didn't work. Dozens of countries and well organized societies responded well to the pandemic.
  - mariodiana 5y ago
    I remember reading that the deaths in countries corresponded pretty tightly with obesity levels in the population. If that's true, that throws lots of "evidence" right out the window. Edit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesity/obesity-a-driving-factor-in-covid-19-deaths-global-report-finds-idUSKBN2AW1X0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesit...
    - sharken 5y ago
      This BBC story speculates that Delta became the main variant in part due to the cold weather. But I'm not sure any one factor can be singled out. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57489740 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57489740
      - mariodiana 5y ago
        I saw a doctor on YouTube (just a private guy with his own channel) apply this same reasoning to Florida. Right now is Florida's "winter": meaning, people tend to stay indoors with the windows closed (to avoid the oppressive heat of the July and August).
mattlondon 5y ago
IMO it was most likely the Euros football/soccer championship leading to a lot of mixing in crowded spaces among younger men who maybe didn't yet have the vaccine or we're from backrounds that are the sort that typically ignore this sort of thing.
- gpt5 5y ago
  Would you also blame the Euro football for the rising Delta cases everywhere in the western world?
  - mattlondon 5y ago
    yes because the matches were all-over europe so same people who were in a packed pub a few days earlier were now on a plane to some other european country to watch the next match. further, the borders remained open so people mixed at home and then went on holiday/visited family etc. UK is a major international transport hub and also has a large population of Indian descent so we likely "imported" delta from India relatively early as a result and then likely helped seed it in other western nations. They should have put India on the red list several weeks earlier than they did when it was obvious for anyone to see what was going on, but they delayed for unknown reasons
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Yep, I know someone who went to one of the Euro matches. They got covid, and they also said that the facebook groups for supporters were absolutely full of people who had also gotten covid.
jl6 5y ago
The UK had a perfect storm of factors contributing to the severity of the Covid pandemic in that country: highly internationally mobile population, highly internally mobile population, a global travel hub, high population density, culture of close social mixing, no culture of mask wearing, colder climate leading to more indoor living, higher than average levels of elderly people, obese people, and of the ethnic groups most impacted by the virus, low appetite for strict enforcement of lockdowns, and low levels of government control over everyday living. Other countries had some of these factors. Few if any had all of these factors. What happened next? The vaccines turned out to be really effective.
- phatfish 5y ago
  "Few if any had all of these factors." The UK certainly doesn't have all of them for a start. The lock-downs had high levels of compliance, just a lot of people moaning from their sofa (or whatever soapbox they have available, reach varies greatly, inversely with intelligence in many cases). Population density, travel hub, obesity levels, delayed first lock-down would be my list.
anigbrowl 5y ago
Underexamined? Every major public health official and commentator has been discussing it on a near daily basis for weeks.

Probably schools and universities being closed. I'd support this by noting that the numbers in Scotland surged earlier then started declining earlier (where universities and schools go on summer holidays weeks before England). When English schools later broke up for summer, numbers there started declining too. So no doubt numbers will start going up again when school returns, and will do so first in Scotland - as the virus burns through the young, unvaccinated population.

gsnedders 5y ago
Not sure it's quite this simple; look at the overall case by specimen and age demographics graphs on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=England https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=natio... (England only, because the data for rUK isn't available). Note the peak is around a week _prior_ the end of the school term in England (23 July), and this is true across basically all age groups.
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  The Euro finals were on 11th July and for a lot of schools the holidays started on the 15th July
- drcongo 5y ago
  Most of England's private schools broke up one week prior to the state schools.
  - de_keyboard 5y ago
    Most children don't go to private schools.
  - richardwhiuk 5y ago
    Only 6% of the population attend private school.
jtbayly 5y ago
But if it rose earlier and fell earlier, the simplest explanation is simply that the course of the disease was... earlier there, isn't it?
- JetSetWilly 5y ago
  It is possible, but there's still large cohorts of the population (ie under 18s) who have not had the virus and are not vaccinated, you would expect that when they go back to large scale mixing in schools together that transmission will increase among them and case numbers will go up. And this isn't really an issue so long as the overwhelming majority of the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. But there still the potential for scary looking case numbers but not so much death numbers.
3dbrows 5y ago
The staggered school return times you mention could be one factor (as could better weather resulting in outdoor socialising instead of indoor). The effect when schools return (~2 weeks from now in Scotland) might be muted however as hundreds of thousands more vaccinations will have been done in the parent-age population. In Scotland, for example, over 90% of adults have received the first dose, and 72% the second (implying that ~18% are in the waiting period for the 2nd). Perhaps we should expect to see a spike in cases in children, but not so much among their parents.
- bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
  Did we not see the same effect last year (probably for the reasons you mentioned)? Numbers declined in summer, but then massively rose again in Oct-Nov. I think this Autumn will reveal whether the vaccinations are giving us the protection needed to gradually open up society again. For my part I really hope it does, as it will also encourage other countries to do the same and give the vaccination campaign a worldwide boost.
  - 3dbrows 5y ago
    Let’s hope the peak just gone is the last big spike. In the final analysis I imagine the British public’s _willingness_ to get the jab will be seen as an enormous success factor, on top of the vaccine itself’s efficacy. This willingness merits study. High social trust of the NHS, historic common understanding of vaccines and everyone knowing someone affected by the virus all play their part. As an aside, I believe this to have been the NHS’ finest hour, and in future “the pandemic” will replace “the war” as the lynchpin reference point in time, as it were.
    - makomk 5y ago
      The UK government definitely seems to consider the British public's willingness to get vaccinated to be one of the key parts of the success story, from what I've seen. I will also say that their handling of issues like the AstraZeneca blood clotting issue has been really good compared to the shitshows elsewhere - careful, measured, with really clear communication about what they know and why it justifies the decisions about whether to vaccinate people with it.

jjgreen 5y ago

The collapse (unexpected by almost everyone) happened after "freedom day", when masks were no longer mandatory and it became legal to stand at the bar in a pub. Probably co-incidence.

lumost 5y ago
There are many coincidences and spurious correlations in the world. It's informative to propose a falsifiable mechanism behind a correlation which can be tested independently. I could reframe your hypothesis in a falsifiable way such as "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused individuals to spend more time outdoors or in open air restaurants rather than smaller closed doors activities such as dinner parties", or "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused people to spend more time in other locations rather than large shared ventilation apartment complexes".
- jjgreen 5y ago
  I make no hypothesis, simply note the order in which things happened (in England at least) as requested by the parent.
shawabawa3 5y ago
The drop actually started before freedom day. There's usually about a 2 week period between "cause" and "effect" in terms of cases anyway. It's much more likely to have peaked because of Euro finals on 11th July and school holidays starting on 15th July
GuB-42 5y ago
It has to be a coincidence. It happened almost the exact day, maybe even a little earlier. It should take about a week to start seeing the effect of a change in policy. From incubation time to testing to results. Usually, we count two weeks to be sure.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  The day restrictions were lifted was itself postponed from the previous month. Modelling was used to predict the day. It could be coincidence but this date was planned and intentional.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Lots of people either being vaccinated or infected seems like it would play a big role.

squarefoot 5y ago
Probably both. We should remember what was the 1st approach to the Covid problem by Johnson (that is, well over one year ago): he wanted to achieve herd immunity without having enough vaccines or not having them at all, and initially there were no imposed lockdowns or infection prevention rules. The point is that along the extremely high death toll caused by that approach, a huge percentage of people over there might have caught the virus without symptoms, therefore becoming immune to a 2nd infection or at least immune to nasty symptoms. So it's entirely possible that the herd immunity was eventually achieved, although many, including me, would agree the price to pay has been not fair.
- Imnimo 5y ago
  I don't really see how the level of immunity could be low enough in June to allow rapid growth, and then suddenly be high enough in mid-July to cause rapid decline. Wouldn't we expect a population close to herd immunity to see slow growth, and a population just over herd immunity to see a slow decline?
  - tsywke44 5y ago
    If 70% of your population is vaccinated, it doesnt mean the virus spreads 70% slower. It instead means that there are 20 million potential virus hosts in the UK instead of 67m. Way more than the population of lots of EU countries.
    - Imnimo 5y ago
      I think it does mean that the virus spreads slower (although the exact amount will also depend on factors like how vaccinated people are distributed among the population). Whereas in an unvaccinated population, each infected person might spread the virus to (say) five others, in a 70% vaccinated population, on average 3.5 of those others would be vaccinated, so the virus would only spread to 1.5 others. This gives a slower rate of growth. Once that rate of growth falls below 1, herd immunity is achieved. When you are close to herd immunity, that rate should be just a little above 1, leading to slow but positive growth.

zarzavat 5y ago

Choose your own adventure, coronavirus edition. You have coronavirus symptoms. During the middle of a surge in cases, the government has announced that all coronavirus restrictions have ended and everybody can go back to normal. The vast majority of older and vulnerable people have been fully vaccinated. Do you: A: get a test and risk having to isolate B: not get a test and live your life like normal as the government said you should

sprkwd 5y ago
Anecdotally, everybody I know has deleted the app from their phone so they can’t get pinged and live their life reasonably normally.
- karol 5y ago
  Anecdotally, I never installed it for the same reason.
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    I wonder how much is post-Snowden distrust of government software and how much is simply not wanting to be pinged?
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      Definitely both. I would install it if it meant free paid holiday from work but I'm not employed and if I were I could probably work from home.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

joelschw 5y ago

The national football team also did really well in the Euro competition - this forced a lot of drunk people indoors and onto public transport.

M2Ys4U 5y ago
And also in to pubs...

ddek 5y ago

Tentative signs the virus has burned out, either through infections or vaccinations. The wave has been entirely confined to the younger age brackets who are far less vaccinated.[1] Being in central London right now, through anecdotal evidence I don't think we've suddenly become less sociable. - [1] UK infections grouped by age. School years 6, 7, 11, and 12 are ages 11, 12, 17, and 18 respectively. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections#infections-by-age https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

wrboyce 5y ago
I don’t think those ages are right (the maths do not follow, so I’m almost certain they are not). In y11 you turn 16, not 17. https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum
- ddek 5y ago
  Your right, I forgot about y13 being the last year. Y11 is GCSE year which ends at 16. I’m not sure why the the age brackets don’t go up to Y13, when school ends.
smorgusofborg 5y ago
The Massachusetts study is rather confusing about delta and vaccination, but I think it emphasizes that demographics of who is socializing is skewed. So it might have burned out among those in the nightlife and still be highly dangerous among pensioners.
- perardi 5y ago
  I know the demographics of who were socializing. It’s very skewed. Friends and acquaintances of mine. I have some doubts about how generalizable the results are. A circuit party is not a produce aisle.

tsywke44 5y ago

Night clubs opened and were PACKED, a lot of young people were unvaccinated, causing hundreds of superspreader events every night for a few weeks. The % of total population who actually visits nightclubs is pretty low, so it took like a monh for this segment to hit herd immunity basically

tsywke44 5y ago
Also lots of previously vaccinated people were exposed, but didn’t get infected. Doesn’t mean their immune system did nothing though. I’d wager a lot of UK population basically got an ”organic 3rd vaccine dose”. My prediction is they have probably the highest immunity rates in the world atm
- bostik 5y ago
  > a lot of UK population basically got an ”organic 3rd vaccine dose”. Isn't that how the vaccination regime is supposed to work, actually? With two jabs in, contracting Covid still comes with something like 4%..20% hit rate.[ß] However, with two jabs the risk of hospitalisation is mercifully low, and roughly half of the cases are asymptomatic. So instead of vaccinated people overloading the NHS, when they do get unlucky, they are much more likely to get through with only mild symptoms. For majority that "organic 3rd dose" works as a booster shot. They can still infect others, though... NB. As far as I know, there are no good studies on how Long Covid manifests in a vaccinated population. I think the working assumption is that very mild symptomatic Covid also ends up with less severe Long Covid, but have heard of no data to back that up. ß: Depending on the study, the vaccine in question and the variant. IIRC 2xPfizer provides ~88% protection against Delta, 95%+ against earlier non-Beta variants; 2xAstraZeneca provides 60%+ protection against Delta, 90%+ against non-Betas. Disclosure: UK resident, with two jabs.
  - mattlondon 5y ago
    As far as I know, long covid is directly related to how sick you get. you hear all these stories of people being bed bound for a week or more, high fever, struggling to breathe, etc etc. I'd think it sounds quite a lot like those people were really rather ill. I don't think people should expect to go back to running marathons or whatever a week after fighting to survive It's the same for flu and other major viral infections. It can take a while to get back to full health - I don't think covid is anything new here? Just the usual "you almost died"?

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago

People reading the news and individually deciding to be slightly more careful again.

danenania 5y ago

Oh fun: the game where everyone puts their pet biases forward in an attempt to explain the behavior of a poorly understood complex system. It reminds me of the financial news. "Commodities markets are spooked as backlash to latest Justin Bieber video mounts!" In all seriousness, apart from the vaccination rate and strictly enforced lockdowns, I have yet to see an explanation for cases going up or down in a particular region that isn't contradicted by the results in some other region. I think we should just admit that except for vaccines and physically forcing 90% of the population into isolation, we don't have a clue what works and what doesn't.

neves 5y ago
There's a lot of evidence about what worked what didn't work. Dozens of countries and well organized societies responded well to the pandemic.
- mariodiana 5y ago
  I remember reading that the deaths in countries corresponded pretty tightly with obesity levels in the population. If that's true, that throws lots of "evidence" right out the window. Edit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesity/obesity-a-driving-factor-in-covid-19-deaths-global-report-finds-idUSKBN2AW1X0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesit...
  - sharken 5y ago
    This BBC story speculates that Delta became the main variant in part due to the cold weather. But I'm not sure any one factor can be singled out. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57489740 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57489740
    - mariodiana 5y ago
      I saw a doctor on YouTube (just a private guy with his own channel) apply this same reasoning to Florida. Right now is Florida's "winter": meaning, people tend to stay indoors with the windows closed (to avoid the oppressive heat of the July and August).

mattlondon 5y ago

IMO it was most likely the Euros football/soccer championship leading to a lot of mixing in crowded spaces among younger men who maybe didn't yet have the vaccine or we're from backrounds that are the sort that typically ignore this sort of thing.

gpt5 5y ago
Would you also blame the Euro football for the rising Delta cases everywhere in the western world?
- mattlondon 5y ago
  yes because the matches were all-over europe so same people who were in a packed pub a few days earlier were now on a plane to some other european country to watch the next match. further, the borders remained open so people mixed at home and then went on holiday/visited family etc. UK is a major international transport hub and also has a large population of Indian descent so we likely "imported" delta from India relatively early as a result and then likely helped seed it in other western nations. They should have put India on the red list several weeks earlier than they did when it was obvious for anyone to see what was going on, but they delayed for unknown reasons
nicoburns 5y ago
Yep, I know someone who went to one of the Euro matches. They got covid, and they also said that the facebook groups for supporters were absolutely full of people who had also gotten covid.

jl6 5y ago

The UK had a perfect storm of factors contributing to the severity of the Covid pandemic in that country: highly internationally mobile population, highly internally mobile population, a global travel hub, high population density, culture of close social mixing, no culture of mask wearing, colder climate leading to more indoor living, higher than average levels of elderly people, obese people, and of the ethnic groups most impacted by the virus, low appetite for strict enforcement of lockdowns, and low levels of government control over everyday living. Other countries had some of these factors. Few if any had all of these factors. What happened next? The vaccines turned out to be really effective.

phatfish 5y ago
"Few if any had all of these factors." The UK certainly doesn't have all of them for a start. The lock-downs had high levels of compliance, just a lot of people moaning from their sofa (or whatever soapbox they have available, reach varies greatly, inversely with intelligence in many cases). Population density, travel hub, obesity levels, delayed first lock-down would be my list.

anigbrowl 5y ago

Underexamined? Every major public health official and commentator has been discussing it on a near daily basis for weeks.