Peter wrote:
But that isn’t the real issue, which is that nobody has much of a clue what is driving these curves
Indeed.
There’s a big wide world out there. Florida’s data below, reflecting the removal of CV-19 related government dictates (i.e. fully reopened) almost a year ago. The state population is about 20 million if you’d like to fiddle with the numbers. The current infection rate per capita is close to that of France.
Peter wrote:
The current speculation here in the UK is that the last spike is a massive infection rate at schools
I don’t think it’s speculation, the numbers and age breakdown is known.
Certainly here, the 10-15 age group has had by far the most infections since schools went back by a very significant margin, probably over half the infections in that age group alone.
He remains perplexed that something seemingly so simple wouldn’t be easily quantified or measured.
It’s not simple.
I guess in many countries the train has left the station regarding getting further people to vaccinate, as the debate gets more and more religious. We had a vigil outside an old pensioners home where a number of inhabitants died recently from Covid by anti measure crowd, hailing those dead as heroes in the name of freedom…. and over 30 k protestors at Bern last weekend.
It is pretty clear that like this we won’t get to a point where overloading of health facilities is not a big risk at any time near the future. Everyone will get infected at one stage with the highly infectious variants, and there are still enough non-vaxxed folks around to fill up hospitals in those countries where everyone has health insurance. In others like Bulgaria, people simply won’t go to hospital until it is way too late or die at home.
Looking at recent figures for some countries, the current wave may well become the deadliest yet in some places. I just got news of another anti vaxxer couple getting really sick these days, friends of ours who may well be gone soon. Even worse, some will not even get vaccinated after close family members die!
The other question is about booster shots, when will they be available and to whom. Frankly, now that there is enough vaccines available, I wonder if it is not a better way to put the authority back to the docs and the decision when to get one to the individual people. Clearly, once administered, it needs to be registered for the certificate to be renewed, but the longer I look at it, I for one don’t want to wait until forever to get a booster, if the Israelis keep telling us that protection goes down massively after 6 months. I’d like one by year’s end latest…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The other question is about booster shots, when will they be available and to whom.
Sweden has just decided to start giving booster shots to people over 65 or working with elderly. I expect the age limit to be lowered successively. At least 6 months should have passed since the second shot and we’re not (in general) there yet for people below 65.
The current trend – seems to be a spread in schools – is bad news for winter holidays; there may be public pressure to shut down again, although I doubt the countries in question want to lose a few tens of BN again…
Here, the first boosters will be November – 6 months after 2nd vacc. Those who got AZ originally will get Pfizer this time 
This epidemic has an endless capacity to surprise, and all the time there is a load of anti-vaccers around, it isn’t going to go away.
France is doing 3rd shots for over 65 and “high risk”. Got ours a couple of weeks ago. Necessary or even useful? Who knows. But a bit like taking vitamin supplements, it doesn’t cost much and it may well do some good.
Peter wrote:
The current speculation here in the UK is that the last spike is a massive infection rate at schools, which has now generated herd immunity in the schools and that is why it is coming back down again.
I think there is an element of ‘self regulation’ here. I’ve thought that for awhile. Numebers come down and society opens up. Everyone relaxes and people mix more and think all is over. Then numbers start to rise as a result and enough people get cautious again and limit interactions, which starts to bring the curves down again. Governments may step in with regulations but I think they are behind the curves, and the population act ahead of them, based on media reports.
The current trend – seems to be a spread in schools – is bad news for winter holidays; there may be public pressure to shut down again, although I doubt the countries in question want to lose a few tens of BN again…
Croatia is paying the price for having impotent government without guts to bring appropriate measures and for having sufficient quantity of stupid citizens.
Emir wrote:
Croatia is paying the price for having impotent government without guts to bring appropriate measures and for having sufficient quantity of stupid citizens.
I think you may extend that to the whole Balkans or at the very least Bulgaria, where the situation is similar.
