Rising Covid-19 cases in the UK may be a warning for the US

[TheProle]

CNN — There are signs that the United Kingdom could be heading into a fall Covid-19 wave, and experts say the United States may not be far behind.

A recent increase in Covid-19 cases in England doesn’t seem to be driven by a new coronavirus variant, at least for now, although several are gaining strength in the US and across the pond.
Pfizer updated Covid-19 vaccine

“Generally, what happens in the UK is reflected about a month later in the US. I think this is what I’ve sort of been seeing,” said Dr. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London.

Spector runs the Zoe Health Study, which uses an app to let people in the UK and US report their daily symptoms. If they start to feel bad, they take a home Covid-19 test and record those results. He says that about 500,000 people are currently logging their symptoms every day to help track trends in the pandemic.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/health/uk-fall-wave-covid-us/index.html

[Sky Jewels]

1. Oh, joy.

[beaglelover]

2. Not worried. We have new vaccines and effective treatments.

COVID is endemic now. It is never going away.

Time to move on and forward with your lives and keep up to date with your vaccinations. Both COVID and flu.

[Elessar Zappa]

7. I agree.

I do wear a mask if I’m going somewhere very crowded, for instance a concert.

[chowder66]

3. I went to the grocery store this morning and woman was talking on the phone and hacking

all over the sushi counter in the deli section. She had no mask, didn't raise her arm to cover her face. The food is all protected in packaging. Pissed me off to no end. About half of us were masked. She looked fairly well-to-do.

This is why I will continue to wear my mask.

[LuckyCharms]

4. I had a guy sneeze right into my eyeballs in the grocery store.

Told him to cover his fucking mouth like a normal human would.

He looked at me like I had three heads.

[chowder66]

5. Wow. That would have infuriated me. How rude and gross!!

[LuckyCharms]

8. Yep, I was mad as hell, but what

are you going to do, you know? I yelled at the guy, not much more you can do.

[chowder66]

13. I know... but you did the best you could.

[progree]

6. Its rising in Europe in general, quite a lot, up 28% in the last 2 weeks. And Fr and Ger 4X US rate

Last edited Wed Sep 28, 2022, 06:52 AM - Edit history (2)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

It may be low in the U.K., but its substantial in France and Germany and rising in both places. And of course these are reported new cases, a fraction of all new cases

New Cases
per 100k

 8     U.K.
15     U.S.
57     France
58     Germany


But no worries about hospitals getting overwhelmed in a fall/winter surge and people dying as a result (not just from Covid but from postponed treatments and surgeries for other conditions like last time). Not a biggie that a higher virus population inevitably means a higher number of mutations. And I don't worry much about the vulnerable and immunosuppressed, because, well, the stock market is more important. No worries about long covid either - hardship builds character. /sarc.

[LuckyCharms]

9. .

[Tomconroy]

10. South Africa has been a better US indicator for some reason.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Hmm. the 13% rise in a week in the NHS figures is from a very low level

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation%26areaName=England#card-cases_by_specimen_date

It was higher than that from about a month earlier, all the way back to June 2021.

The Zoe numbers have historically not matched the NHS figure very well

https://health-study.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map

Zoe shows a plateau from January to early March 2022, then a peak (almost doubling) centered on early April. The NHS figures show the big peak at the start of January 2022, then a smaller peak (under half that) centered on late March. Zoe has a peak in mid-July as big as its April one, and the NHS one in early July about a third of the late March one (though that may be due that far less testing by then, but the testing page shows the July positivity rate was about half the March one).

Spector says the study, which has been running since the days of the first lockdown in England in 2020, has accurately captured the start of each wave, and its numbers run about one to two weeks ahead of official government statistics.

That just seems to be false. It seems to lag the government statistics, and bear little relation in size.

UK case rate is still under half the USA's: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=IND~USA~GBR~CAN~DEU~JPN

[wishstar]

12. We had fall/winter spikes both in 2020 and 2021 so another spike seems likely this fall/winter

now that more indoor activities are back and many people have not been vaccinated or boosted.