Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed some statistics in the Commons yesterday about the Delta (Indian) variant: out of 12,383 Delta variant positive tests in the U.K. up to June 3rd, 464 went to emergency care and 126 were admitted to hospital. Of those admitted to hospital, 83 were unvaccinated, 28 had had one jab and three had had both doses.
Keen-eyed readers will spot that 83+28+3 is not 126 – there are 12 hospital admissions unaccounted for. A Department of Health source told the Financial Times‘s Sebastian Payne that nine of these “don’t match to a vaccine status at present” while three were within 21 days of their first dose so didn’t count in any category.
Can we use these figures to make some crude calculations of the severity of the Delta variant?
126 hospital admissions out of 12,383 positive tests gives a 1% hospitalisation rate, or 99% not needing hospital. How does this compare to the Alpha (British) variant?
Last week Public Health England (PHE) released a study claiming the Delta variant had around double the risk of serious disease or hospitalisation compared with the Alpha variant. However, according to the ONS, during the winter peak when the Alpha variant was dominant, around 2% of the population of England was infected with COVID-19 and around 0.04% of the population was being admitted to hospital with the virus each week, giving around 2% of British variant infections leading to hospital admission. This is double the rate for the Indian variant on Hancock’s figures – and furthermore, Hancock’s figures use positive cases, not an ONS population infection estimate, which would reduce the hospitalisation rate for the Indian variant further.
However, what we don’t know, because these are just statistics delivered verbally in Parliament not a proper report (more science-by-press-release), is how many of the 12,383 positive cases are too recent to have led yet to hospital admission. We also don’t know how elderly or vulnerable those in the sample of 12,383 are, or what impact the vaccines are making on the hospitalisation rate.
The figures are of limited use as well in estimating the effectiveness of the vaccines against hospital admission with the Delta variant. That’s because we don’t know what proportion of the 12,383 infected were vaccinated, so we can’t control for that key factor. Having said that, the three versus 83 hospital admissions for fully vaccinated versus unvaccinated seems encouraging.
Overall, this data is very limited. Nonetheless, the fact that the hospitalisation rate even among positive cases is so much lower with the Delta variant now than with the Alpha variant in winter is further evidence that the latest scariant is nothing to fear.
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So the Delta scariant of the Chinese virus (prevalent in towns with a large Delta population) actually only causes half the hospitalisations of the Alpha variant. Either way, I’ll have curry with that. Never mind, there’s an Alpha-Delta variant now (you get chips as well as curry). I can’t confirm rumours that a study shows it to cause at least four times the hospitalisations of the Alpha variant…
Joking aside, no doubt lots of people will die from respiratory diseases next winter, no doubt “Covid” of various variants will be present – after all, an average of over a dozen pathogens present in deaths of the elderly who die from respiratory diseases isn’t there? And with the virus endemic in the population “Covid” deaths are likely to be even more overstated than last year, triggering further restrictions by the current government logic. What we really need is someone like Professor Carl Heneghan to force a further change in how Covid deaths are counted, like with the change to a 28 day time limit last August.
What we really need down the line is proper debate and research within the scientific community as to the veracity or otherwise of the existence of contagious viruses, a la Prof Stefan Lanka et al. It’s time for a paradigm shift. It’s time to rise out of the quagmire of germ theory and grow up a bit and not be scaredy cats! Come on science boffs….over to you.
What we need is honest scientists advising an honest government.
And a pig just flew past the blue moon.
Yup, can confirm that.
A flying pig and a blue moon are not too far away from mRNA vaccs and a transhumanist agenda. So I think honest scientists can still step up to the plate. Govts? That’s another thing altogether.
If Alpha is English WuFlu and Delta is Indian flu then what is the Chinese Wuhan flu to be called?
My head hurts.
Hugh, you need have no worries about a winter flu outbreak.
Do you not know that our common or garden British flu has been “defeated” “beaten” and is no more
I have never been scared of the first version so I don’t give a F.. about any others.
What was also omitted from this ‘data’ (a word I’ve come to loath) is the ages and health condition of those admitted to hospital. Cherry picking info to create panic has been the whole play of this charade.
And still, on average, 800 odd people died from cancer and heart disease yesterday.
Our Government and MSM are so fixated with scare stories about Covid they imagine that none of know or care that 800 odd people died of cancer and heart disease yesterday and all manner of other things — It appears these are non people – It is utterly shaming —
Even the ones that allegedly die of covvie are only items in the corpse count, useful for maintaining terror.The Fascists don’t give a stuff about them as people. And an unvaccinated corpse is a cause for celebration.
Don’t forget dementia 1400 deaths a day on average.
I think it’s problematic and aggressively racist that the British variant gets to be called “Alpha” and the Indian one “Delta”. How dare they go through the Greek alphabet in its original, paternalistic order. It’s such an obvious mindset of imperialist aggression. I’d like the Indian variant to be called “Chi” (mispronounced in the usual English way to sound like the lovely spiced tea), the British variant to be “Pi” (as in steak and kidney, or vegan leek and mushroom for a plant-based alternative, obviously). This democratic principle can be extended further with very little effort – let’s hope there’s a Frisian variant so it can be called “Mu”, a California variant can be “Omicron” (oh my CRON or OMC in textspeak), New Zealand can have “Lambda” and obviously when China gets “Xi”, the rest of the world catches a cold.
Any variant that gets to Britain should be referred to as the epsilon-minus variant.
I don’t get the sarcastic dig at mispronunciation? The tea is chai. There were two was to pronounce Chi even in Ancient Greek. I would agree that a reasonable pronunciation would be ‘Kai’. However it is a sad fact that modern day linguistics seem to accept that common pronunciations are the ‘new normal’.
Pardon me for trying to post something fun.
Hilarious Friedrich
Sceptics have the best jokes because they can see right through this manufactured mince.
Ha the 12 missing people who can’t be “matched to a vaccine status” are not in the books because they are here illegally.
I did wonder if part of all this testing and tracking and tracing and now vaxxing was not also a way of them getting a handle who the million people are in the UK who live largely off the grid.
The man’s a knob why are we still listening to him?
Most pertinent comment I’ve read.
The picture of him attached to the ATL article speaks for itself!
)
(Just seen that I am not the first to make this observation, but the point can’t be made often enough
Succinct. That about sums it up. Except that ‘lying’ needs to be the adjective before ‘knob’.
And please add ‘Total lack of ’emotional intelligence’, or does that cover too many politicians?
Give it another week and we’ll have the Gamma variant lol.
Todays Scariant was brought to you with the letter Gamma !!
Science (alleged) meets Sesame Street in Latin !
Here’s an incontrovertible stat for you: there is “at least” one manipulative lying prick running the Department Of Health charade. Oh, and “at least” one evil c*nt in charge of the “vaccine” roll-out.
Admitted to hospital with the virus or admitted to hospital because of the virus? Without knowing the reason why each of those 464 people sought emergency care and 126 of them went to hospital (and that’s after taking the positive test at face value) this, like every other statistic spewed out by the government and dutifully gobbled up by the media, is meaningless.
Do we know if they are using the CDC vaccine efficacy fraud in the UK too? I.e. vaccinated have a lower PCR cycle limit and are only counted with symptoms?
Manipulation of data in order to increase fear – ie lying – by government bodies that leads to policy affecting the country should be a serious criminal offence.
Nothing new here, Governments, politicians (main offenders) and business have always lied to suit their agendas.
The statistics are totally meaningless without including the age. Goverment data for England show “heat maps” of age versus “infections”, hospitalisations and deaths and it is abundantly clear that teens and twenties show by far the highest rates of positives, but don’t figure anywhere on the other two metrics for reasons that have been clear throughout.
The chances are that the hospitalisations and deaths are almost all from they few older people who, amongst other things, are more likely to have additional contributary health issues, whatever their vaccination status.
Absolutely you have to allow for age. The PHE report did this (and other potential confounding factors) and found the Delta variant to have about the twice the hospitalisation rate of the Alpha variant. Will’s comparison is meaningless because during the winter peak the average age of cases was much higher. The odd thing is that Will discussed the significance of age and other confounding factors when writing about the PHE report on the 5th of June but seems to have forgotten it in the last three days.
Why are people even still listening to this scientifically illiterate dumbo and his mates at SAGE?
At the end of all this corporate ‘science’ will be in a very bad and disreputable place.
That photo of Hancockup accompanying this article says it all. If ever there was a face that is lying, its that one. He should be sacked and then jailed for life, in the absence of the death sentence, the sentence he cold heartedly served on thousands of innocent elderly people.
It’s unusual of Hancockwomble to confess his innumeracy.
WTF is this supposed to me. They must match to a vaccine status. The have either had 1 dose, 2 doses or are unvaccinated …… or perhaps they don’t quite fall into the cherry-picked period in which they can be excluded from the vaccinated group(s),
Also, Matt again appears to have forgotten to provide the data for hospitalisations (& deaths) DUE to the vaccine – despite being asked for the figures some time ago. Clearly an oversight on his behalf but there have been over 1200 deaths recorded to date which is around 50 per week so the data might be of interest.
“Overall, this data is very limited”
No, Will. Tell it as it is.
This ‘data’ is pure shite. Once the holes have been picked, there’s very little fabric.
Remember – all this is still based on the PCR+ fabric.
The ‘variant’ fictions, like exhibitionist children, shouldn’t be honoured with attention.
So the ‘variant’ industry becomes added to the list of money-making scams.
It’d be good if someone totted up all the subsidy to the pharmaceutical and related industry – tests, vaccines, masks, ‘phone apps …. etc. etc.
That photo ‘triggers’ me! Just want to smack him!
Agreed! It’s a face searching for a fist.
On the contrary, it is a face for farting in so let’s get a herd of elephants, each gorged on baked beans, eggs and Brussel sprouts, to take turns at farting in his face.
‘101 uses of Hancock’s Face’ would be a great picture book.