UKC

Calling all the Covid clever people.... What do you think is happening in Moray? A new variant? People just relaxing too much as they were previously not so badly hit? Something else? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-57010292

In reply to girlymonkey:

I live there. I could tell you, but......

In reply to girlymonkey:

Thats a ........

In reply to girlymonkey:

Briefly discussed on the covid plotting thread. The absolute numbers of infections are still quite low. Apparently there have been a lot of infections found at a school in Elgin. It would only take a couple of outbreaks and some surge testing to make the headline numbers look bad in a place with that population size.

Daily cases very spiky (7 day average will go up again when that big grey spike is accounted for) which suggests to me it's surge testing after an outbreak that is causing the headline to get high rather than general case growth. Like currently in some English areas though, it's perhaps an indication that we are now on the cusp of turning to growth as soon as an outbreak occurs that we lose control of.

Edit to add plot, I forgot. If the cause of the spike is indeed surge testing, then you should see case numbers drop in the next 2-3 days. If they don't then maybe there's a wider problem.

2nd edit: another good indication would be case demographics. If many of the new cases are people in their 20s and 30s, that probably suggests community transmission. If it's just secondary age kids and their parents' age groups that have risen, that suggests not. The data isn't available for Scottish areas via the UK dashboard and I don't know how to find it, if available, via the Scottish one.

In reply to Si dH:

I hadn't noticed it in the other thread, thanks for the reply.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-57014153

Maybe it is young adults and community transmission which is the problem if they are doing this?

In reply to girlymonkey:

Given the time lag between vaccination and partial immunity I wonder about the efficacy of changing the vaccination strategy. I wonder if this is a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has gone.

In reply to Removed User:

I don't know about this one, but Lancashire seems to be experiencing a surge at the moment, and if you look at the heatmap it seems to be concentrated around kids aged 11-15 and adults in their 30s who are probably their parents, and all of them likely unvaccinated.

There seems to be ongoing denial that schools are a problem.  They weren't with the original, but with all the variants they seem very clearly to be a problem.  This means that we are going to need to find a way to vaccinate kids or return to partial attendance so distancing is possible on pretty much a permanent basis.  It doesn't help that people are shouting "think of the children" and trying to stop any such plans.

In reply to Si dH:

"Age/sex and deprivation breakdowns are only available at Scotland level in order to protect patient confidentiality."

https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDash... - 'Trends and demographics' tab.

The data aren't available on the 'Data table' tab either AFAICS.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Note 4th paragraph 

https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/covid-r-rate-in-moray-hits-1-8-237567/

In reply to girlymonkey:  There have been outbreaks locally in smallish places like Karmoy, and a few other small towns in southern Norway.  Usually birthday partys or similar