There is hope,

Without getting into too much detail I enter 4-6 homes a day in a surveying role.

And I’m not kidding, 9/10 people don’t believe it. They scramble for a mask because I’m wearing one (I have to play the game) and I say “don’t worry about it I’m not high risk and I think it’s overblown. They relax and generally go on to say they thing the govt have got themselves in a hole they can’t get out of.

Occasionally you get a .gov type employee who is absolutely neurotic, but interestingly they’re the ones living in filth. The place has never been cleaned - that sort of thing.

Of course there are the older people who are at genuine risk, and they wear a mask for that reason.

I think we’re at a stage where no one is observing the “rules” privately, it’s all for show publicly. When that slips then with a it of luck we’ll get a tipping point where non compliance is just too commonplace to enforce, either by social shaming or otherwise.

@MikeAustin

* We will only succeed if we can show the deaths being caused are more than those being saved*

I don’t think that’s going to work.

That would mean them acknowledging that they were wrong, and they’re never going to do that.

They might accept it going forward, as a prediction, while not admitting previous actions caused more harm than good. They can manipulate the data to cover their tracks, which is why new strains were introduced.
A large part of ten problem is there is no debate. The media are on message and anything off message is shut down.

Yes. They will not debate because it would give the oxygen of publicity to the evidence against them. They need to obfuscate and confuse, distracting from the core arguments and their failings. We can expect to see a few more red herrings before any debate can take place.

A great post Mike a. It said it all. I totally agree with your post..

Yes, I won't try to refute what Mike said, since it's right. The 500,00 ongoing cases figure stands up quite well since it's based on symptoms, not tests. And the 100 deaths a day figure stands up too, since it's based on IFR of 0.3%, which is a realistic international figure. You can be fairly comfortable those figures give a fair picture of steady state in current lockdown, along with all the lockdown harms on top of course. It's not steady though, but it's the best picture I can create in a dynamic pandemic.

We cannot win this fight today or tomorrow, but we might win a battle or two over the next three month, and total victory in Spring. What a day that will be - we will live in a free country.

Once the nation has passed the solstice and Christmas without any surge in cases and with (hopefully) the cases counts soon turning towards a downwards path we hope , with the vaccine starting to protect, and new vaccines (Oxford) online and the days getting longer, I think a hybrid Barrington might be achievable for a first battle. I'm OK for a while with face masks or if the pubs shut at 9:00, and if Museums and Cinemas stay shut but that's just me being selfish. Come Spring we all have to prod our representatives to start to take the edge off the harshest restrictions and prepare the ground to drop them altogether.

First I want to know if the feared Christmas surge was a damp squib (spoiler: I think it was). All first and health ministers feared a chaotic rush period in the NHS through Christmas/deep winter. Once it is over there is every reason to suppose the virus will decline.

To set lockdown policy, the government looks at cases, icu admissions, admissions, deaths and cases in the vulnerable groups. If those dry up, we're in the clear. So let's look for faint signs of hope:

I am looking at the only data I trust, the data in the ZOE symptom check app. ZOE is surprisingly sensitive, I have discovered, we are dealing with very uncertain data, but let's try to see where we are with the data we have.The data may suggest that the second peak of the second wave is on the horizon. You cannot tell with the naked eye but I'm looking at the detail of the curves.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time

Here's case data over Chrimbo taken from those curves

25 , 460539, delta 19940 <--2nd day descending… need next two days to be sure
24 , 440599, delta 21288 <-- inflection here, poss. start of 2nd peak of 2nd wave
23 , 419311, delta 21985
22 , 397326, delta 19694
21,377632, delta 18056
20, 359576, delta 16003
19-343573, delta 13903
18- 329670

There were incrementally more daily infections leading up to Christmas as the nation shopped, travelled, and infected each other. Then suddenly out of the blue on top of Christmas two or three days with slightly smaller changes as we went through Christmas, as the nation winds down in front of the telly. There is a tiny inflection point in the curve, which I have been waiting for, not a big one, but quite noticeable.

I'll have egg on my face if it's a mirage, which is quite likely.

It is far too slight and soon to see anything certain in it, but it is there, perhaps signalling the start of the second peak of the second wave, which is due. Any true scientist will be laughing when I put great store in such small signals, but I do get a feeling that it's starting to peak, which would be great news for us if it is real. To compare, let's look at the first peak of the 2nd wave to see what it was like before the signal showed certainty, the inflection point was on the 26th Oct

29 Oct, 564184,delta 11751← very clear by now
28 Oct, 552433,delta 15011
27 Oct, 537422,delta 15013
26 Oct, 522409,delta 16083 <-- inflection here start of 1st peak second wave.
25 Oct, 506326,delta 17559
24 Oct, 488767,delta 17334
23 Oct, 471433,delta 17408
22 Oct, 454025

So there is a similar inflection starting after many days of steady climb, sudden change on 26 Oct. becoming the first peak of 2nd wave on 5th Nov.

So what does this say? On the previous peak to current, on 5th Nov, the first sign in the ZOE app data was on 26th Oct, 10 days before. We obviously don't know the date of the 2nd Peak of the 2nd wave since it has not occured yet, but projecting from prev. pattern, we detected a faint sign of an inflection on 24th Dec.
24th Dec + 10 days means we expect curve to be in tight turn downwards on
2nd or 3rd of January if it plays out, but it's a big if, since there is so much uncertainty.

Let's continue playing, but don't bet the farm on this, it's likely to be hogwash. What I can say is that the great surge in cases feared in the run up to Christmas has not occurred perhaps because since 17th Dec, many more places have been moved to tier 3 or even tier 4 lockdown.

The case rate has decelerated slightly over Christmas perhaps partly due to those measures, but we won't know for a few days since covid-19 takes a little while to start up. I think we might be in a good place to judge the direction of travel by the new year.

And I and many people I know still do not want the vaccine. Many other people I know have taken the vaccine. Personal choice and both sides that chose had nothing to do with a social conscience....
😀

I don't think anyone can predict the course of seasonal ARIs including Covid for the rest of the winter. The problem isn't really Covid but the inability of our health and social care services to cope with a large vulnerable population susceptible to ARIs during the winter months.

And I and many people I know still do not want the vaccine. Many other people I know have taken the vaccine.

holdouts are not concerning if general take up is good, good luck.