They would. Not at the speed they are now but there would haven been a steady decline. Just like everywhere else having winter peak.
Why would they be falling in February, when they peaked in April last year? It's a combination of lockdown and vaccine, not the end of the winter flu season.
I think it’s still been a huge proportion in the care homes in this last wave though as well, I saw a quote that said something like 35% this time was also in care homes so I think that impact has been maintained. I think regardless of me disagreeing on lockdown policy everyone can agree that care homes have been a disaster (I also think the NHS has questions to answer on how high transmission has been in hospitals though I get it is hugely difficult to prevent)
The vaccine trials were Lab trials frankly done like that to get the highest percentage possible. Nobody vulnerable or with underlying conditions ,disabled , obese ,not in tip top health will have took part in the trials. 1 % non white took part in the Pfizer trial The drug company's will not say how many people over 60 took part in the trials. i am going to assume not many if any actually did and if they did they will have a health check and been very healthy for there age. One Lab test abroad it turned out the oldest person was 31 years old Real world figures are likely to be much lower The flu lab trials had similarly high % lab tests and over the years ahead proved to be around 40/60 %. The initial recently released ONS graph showed zero change between unvaccinated V vaccinated people both exactly mirror each other The experts on TV are saying the vaccinated figure line should have started to drop below the other one by now if the trial results matched real world but very early days so hopefully in the weeks to come this will change. probably this is what the government are waiting to see happen before they announce what comes next. leaks seem to be already emerging saying social distancing will have to continue for the foreseeable future and " restrictions " will have to be brought in over winter periods unless the virus dies out or our bodies don't adapt to it to lessen the effects. For The people who are in the vulnerable cat's and aging who the jab is less likely or wont work the best form of defence will be is to try to keep your body and mind in the best shape possible try to keep positive and not to let too many negative thoughts creep in to give yourself the best chance of keeping in the best health possible. unfortunately this is not possible for a percentage of the population ONS revealed the other day that two thirds of people who had died of Covid in the UK were disabled people So if we are around 120,000 that means around 80,000 absolutely staggering i presume the lack of mobility to keep yourself healthy and underlying condition's connected with a disability are the cause of this ?
Transmission in hospitals is frightening. I know of 2 recently who have gone in clear of Covid to attend operations. And finished up picking it up there. 1 hospitalised for several days.
This isn't the most extensive research in the world but I made a graph showing the percentage of covid deaths on each Friday since 20th November up to 5th February (the last Friday with accurate figures that I could find). The fainter lines show the average percent for each age group throughout the entire pandemic. It doesn't have the average age of deaths (I couldn't find that) but does help show the general pattern of age related deaths I guess.
So why has almost every other country suffered similar winter spikes regardless of vaccine and lockdown status? Furthermore, why until the arrival of Covid last year did the surveillance on respiratory viruses all return peaks between weeks 48 and week 6 of the following year? Its nothing new, December and January are when respiratory virus cases spike and decline . . . January 2018 I think it was 50k died of the flu inside 30 days.
Am I talking Swahili? The winter flu season doesn't end in February. COVID was rampant in late March, early April last year. There's no way infections would be coming down now without intervention.
Why wouldnt they? Are they not coming down in Sweden after a second spike? Or Japan? Or South Korea? Or places through out the states that have had varying degrees of lockdown and intervention. They peaked in this wave prior to the lockdown being enforced in the UK. I never said flu season stopped. just that this is peak time and when infections spike. It happens around the same time every year.
""Furthermore, why until the arrival of Covid last year did the surveillance on respiratory viruses all return peaks between weeks 48 and week 6 of the following year?""
I might be being a little thick but wasn't last winter/spring a little unique? Regardless of winter peaks it would have been pretty impressive if the deaths for January and February when there was only about 20 people in the whole of the UK with covid hadn't increased at all in the months after that.
For anyone who wants the data for dates of death not the date reported and also positive test specimen date and date reported it's here https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/?_ga=2.124737358.559847129.1613320509-34126823.1610638288 If you prefer to look it up yourself put in Google Public health England and then go down to track coronavirus cases all data is on that
Tbh I’ve not been following much recently, been too busy at home. I agree that it’s nearly time to start reducing measures, but let’s just take it one step at a time rather than releasing them in one go. Once we’re there with vaccinations restrictions should be eased almost completely although I’d keep simple things like masks in shops for a while yet.
Just to show how bad.. For the week ending Feb 12 there were in all settings 3.2K* deaths with a positive covid test within 28 days In a care home setting there were 1.2K* of deaths with a positive covid test within 28 days Thats 38% of deaths attributed to a minute proportion of the population. * This will likely change going forward a PHE data comes in. It lags by about 10 days