The method used to report covid deaths has always been unsatisfactory, but it's important that the method is consistent in order that we might see the trends.

I would imagine that the number of people who die of unrelated causes within 28 days of a covid diagnosis is roughly balanced by those who die more than 28 days after diagnosis. Supporting this idea is the fact that the total number of covid-related deaths according to the ONS, who look at the cause of death on death certificates, is of a similar order of magnitude to the official figure (and in fact a little higher)

300 Scotrail staff currently off work for COVID-related reasons, with obvious impacts on services:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59817924

What's really shocking to me in this story (and why I thought I'd share it) is that only 25% of those 300 are close contact isolations (and wrongly or rightly the Scottish Government has been criticised for remaining more cautious on this than the UKG). 75% are either COVID positive or symptomatic and awaiting PCR results.

The more thoughtful will bite their tongues until the reporting of deaths gets through its Christmas hiatus.

we have had omicron for nearly a month now and at significant levels for several weeks, and yet the 7 day death rate keeps falling and is now at the lowest rate since august. This is either the most amazing lag we have ever seen so far, or I think you could possibly be bold enough to start thinking perhaps it’s not that lethal - as the evidence from South Africa already suggested was the case.

total number of people in hospital still remains under the levels we had for most of November, and not really out of the broad range we have seen for 2/3 months now.

A few weeks ago we were debating about a fall in covid cases and then Omicron jumped up. I'd be wary of doing the same with hospital admissions, at least not to tempt Lady Bad Luck.

BTW, I saw Piers Corbyn and his merry band of morons vandalising a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes yesterday. When is he finally going to jail?

yes I think it’s certainly true that good news is always caveated and approached with caution, and we are told we need to wait for more data :)

Query on isolation rules. If you catch covid abroad can you isolate abroad and then fly to the UK as soon as you can produce a negative LFT? Or are you required to wait 7 days? And does that increase to 10 days before you can travel to Wales/ Scotland?

subject to the rules regarding self isolation in the country you are leaving, then yes as soon as you have a negative pre departure test you can come to the uk.

Once you have your negative day 2 test, and unless you are subsequently pinged by nhs test & trace, there is no requirement to self isolate once you get to the uk.

Total number is increasing, when I look at the NHS dashboard, which is logical as admissions are also rising. Or did I misread ?

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8cbb082ce2.png

It can be difficult to discharge patients over Christmas, so some of the rise will be down to that. That should be sorted in the next week or so. Unfortunately he UK data quality will not be great until some time next week.

Agreed. But notice the rise is in England only. And Scotland data are missing. So hospital data should not be commented until after NYE, either to say they plateau or not.

It was a testing centre, Boris was in the town's vaccination centre, and the anti vaxxers knew the police attention would be diverted. I don't know why injunctions haven't been laid on his activities, but clearly we need to give a margin to freedom of speech and protest, no matter how awkward it is. They are also well advised - trespass is a civil matter, you have to get to aggravated trespass to get to criminal law, so inhibiting the operations of the centre. This clearly happened yesterday, but again it's a summary offence, 3 months prison maxima which I suspect has never been handed out, band 4 fine, so well down the priority list for the police. It's best not to get too carried away by a relatively small but very mobile group of protesters. I've only had one person arrested for anti-vax activities in the last 12 months and I've not seen him since.

Certainly no one is suggesting there won’t be increases. But we have a months worth of data now and it seems daily admissions, total numbers, case numbers, and numbers in ICU are nowhere near the numbers modelled at the start of the month. As also noted the death rate continues to fall.

I am shocked that the actual numbers are nowhere near the numbers suggested in the models at the start of the month :)

Well I can see some of the internal data. Some hospitals in London are seeing clear rises, in line with, but not at corresponding levels to, the rise in Omicron cases. So inner London hospitals, south London hospitals. Regional hospitals aren't really impacted yet. But patterns of human behaviour are very odd at this time of year - people off work, schools and colleges closed, the test point will be around 10 to 20 January (as was the case last year).

I’m sure I read elsewhere that we get a big backlog of unreported deaths today?