It seems the new workaround for this is to book the tests with Eurofins then do a chargeback when they don't arrive :)

Hospitalisations were always expected to increase with the reduction in restrictions in May and June - see the grey line in the chart below:
I am also 99% certain we are not yet seeing the start of a much bigger wave caused by increased transmissibility of the B.1.617.2 variant, shown as the red line in the chart. If this were the case I would expect to see first a surge in cases (mostly among young people, essential workers), in the same way as we saw last year for the Kent variant.

Those charts are fairly scary. :(

Only to people that are easily scared. We'll never get out of this if we react to every single blessed chart like this. They just reminds me of sales prediction charts until they are based in fact.

Seriously I can't see anything wrong here, cases look flat to me nationally. Young people getting infected really isn't an issue, most of them are unvaccinated/uninfected hence the easier chance of getting COVID. If a few older/vulnerable didn't get vaccinated at all and infected which is clearly the case, then them alone shouldn't be a burden. This variant has been around a while, no disaster yet even though most things are open. Hope they go through with June 21.

The media/scientists love their doom and gloom graphs and models, remember the '3000 deaths a day' one? You have 70% of the population with antibodies, higher in the higher age groups, I don't think there are enough uninfected ppl left to fill the hospitals!

Seriously, that graph is clearly made up by someone who is upset we are unlocking at all given the amount they have cooked the books, are you seriously telling me that in the middle of summer the issue will be twice as bad as the winter even with all the vaccines? That's insane.

And all this scaremongering about supermutants, well none of them have escaped vaccines.

The virus will get more transmissible as it continues to die out.

And who are essential workers by the way? Many many people are back to work now, at this rate everyone will be called an essential worker!

Yes - but it is intentionally the scary one from Warwick University, who are running the most pessimistic modelling. For example, not considering changes to behavior by the population that are not legally required (everyone going straight back to the office in June).

SAGE are using multiple models from different sources and transparently publishing them - hugely to their credit. Me including just one chart from one model without any explanation or assumptions is as bad as some of the poorest journalists.

Full details on each model are here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collec...tings-may-2021

you are forgetting 2 very key facts. 1. it was the middle of winter when respiratory diseases are at their worst. 2. almost no one had been vaccinated at that time.
previous trajectories are irrelevant now, you would have already seen a large increase if there was no immunity in genpop.

HMG even said it, higher cases alone are to be expected.

Here is a better chart to make the point - as it shows the expected hospitalizations after step 3 and step 4 of the reopening, without any estimates for VOC's.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...dfe2f8ae9f.jpg

The yellow line is the projected COVID19 hospital bed occupancy after wave 3 reopenings and the blue line is after wave 4 reopenings. The shaded area shows show 95% credible intervals, again with yellow after wave 3 and blue after wave 4.

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.go...own_Step_3.pdf

The main point is we are expecting an increase in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, so it shouldn't be a cause for panic when that happens. In my opinion, the numbers seem still somewhat better than expected, despite the recent rises and variant concerns.

Ok, so according to Matt Hancock, one in ten of the people currently in hospital with the Indian variant have had both jabs. He seemed to imply those were all very old.

Did he say how many have had a single jab? That could be more pertinent.

Sorry, I don't recall. He was answering questions in Parliament (on Sky News) while I was shovelling brunch. However, from the Guardian live page:

So, it seems he didn't actually give that all important number.

1 in 10 with both jabs in hospital seems quite bad actually.

Since the vaccines are generally around 90-95% effective, why do you come to that conclusion?

No, you are either misreading, misinterpreting or mischaracterising what I said. I'm talking about the last few weeks, not the position in November.

The recent trajectory, before the Indian variant took hold in a few areas, had been downwards. The vaccine levels were climbing and we'd emerged from the hardest lockdown. Overall, though, the immunity from vaccination would have been a bit worse than it is now, and the metrological conditions for transmission more favourable.

Even in that situation the numbers were consistently getting better. At some point, clearly, there will come a point where we bump along at a base level - much as we always have with other viruses which primarily transmit through the air - but the experience in Israel suggests that perhaps we are not quite at that point, hence rises need to be treated with caution until more data is available. Maybe - hopefully - the downward trend will resume shortly, but no-one should be claiming that's a certainty this early in the game, or that a rise is good news when we should likely still be seeing improvement.

With respect, "ahmet from Flyertalk said so" probably isn't going to cut it so far as government policy is concerned. Numbers continuing to drop - as we saw with the Kent variant - could have been portrayed as good news, i.e. the effect of the Indian variant was not as bad as feared. Numbers now rising ostensibly because that variant is strongly present in a few areas may not yet be a cause for panic, but it ought to at least provide some reflection and focus on what needs to be done.

I also happen to think that there is an over-reaction to the current spread of the virus, and the right actions will contain it, but I've seen enough with lots of viruses to know that you keep your tinder dry when making predictions, else there's a very good chance of looking foolish at the end of it!

Depends on the outcome. If it potentially means an average of 100 deaths per day where previously it would have been 1000, for the same level of cases, then yes it wouldn't be great. However, this seems unlikely. Chances are the majority of those going into hospital treatment, right now, will be alive when they leave.