ONS: Children and young people are more likely to bring the virus into the household

En nyligen publicerad analys av Storbritanniens Office of National Statistics ONS visar följande.

”This analysis shows that children and young people are more likely to bring the virus into the household than those aged 17+. They are also less likely to catch the virus within the household.

External exposure shows how likely someone is to be the first case in their household. Young people (aged 2-16) are much more likely than those aged 17+ to be the first case in their household. In particular, for the period 26 April to 2 December 2020, those aged 12 to 16 are nearly 7 times as likely to be the first case in their household, compared to those 17+. 

Transmissibility shows how likely someone is to pass the virus on within the household, if they are the first positive case. The analysis shows that for the period 26 April to 2 December 2020,  2 – 16 year olds are more than twice as likely to pass on the virus within their household compared to people aged 17+. 

Susceptibility shows how likely someone is to catch the virus, if someone else in their household has brought it in. Children aged 16 or under are less likely to get the virus from someone within their household compared to people aged 17+.”

Länk ONS Household transmission analysis

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Frånvaro av munskydd bidrog till smittspridningen

Du nämner god ventilation och användande av ansiktsmasker som viktiga faktorer. Kan du utveckla?

God ventilation är mycket viktigt. När vädret blivit kallt och uppvärmningen går på högvarv ser vi att smittspridningen ökat i länder som Slovenien (som klarade pandemins första våg med låg smittspridning, men nu har många smittade och extremt höga dödstal, reds anm). Ansiktsmasker är mycket viktiga instrument för att minska smittspridningen. Jag håller på ett skriva en rapport tillsammans med Yaneer Bar-Yam om ansiktsmasker, men har också i en uppsats gått igenom argumenten varför man bör använda ansiktsmask (”The Masks Masquerade”).⁸

Varför har utvecklingen varit så olika i liknande länder som Sverige och Norge? Norge har runt 500 döda och Sverige över 10 000.

Sverige har inkompetenta epidemiologer i beslutsfattande ställning. De förstår inte ”tail events”. Det vill säga, de förstår inte icke-linjära förlopp. Det är vanligt bland läkare. De är duktiga på mikronivå, att vårda patienter, men de har begränsad förståelse av de stora sammanhangen på makronivå. Det låga användandet av ansiktsmasker i Sverige spelar också in i de högre dödstalen. Men överlag har stora grupper av svenskar, självmant, varit duktiga på att slå till bromsarna. De har trots för sena och för få restriktioner från myndigheterna anpassat sina liv till pandemin. Hade de inte gjort det kanske dödstalen hade varit uppåt 20 000–30 000 eller ännu högre. Vem vet, kanske 100 000?

Länk KVARTAL

Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions

Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings.

Länk NATURE

Effective pandemic management that minimises economic harm

 1. Ensuring the physical distancing of people residing in different households. While one metre is often recommended as the minimal distance, COVID-19 transmissibility continues to decrease significantly with greater distance.

2. Investing massively in expanding the number of tests, particularly for groups at high risk of COVID-19 infection and of transmitting the disease such as doctors and nurses, nursing home staffs, workers at meat processing plants, teachers, cashiers, and employees in public transportation. An important feature of this intervention is making sure that those who want to be tested do get tested within a short period of time – ideally in dedicated testing facilities separate from other patients.

3. Provided that enough testing capacity is available for the groups at high risk of infection or high risk of spreading the disease, massive testing on a large scale (at the city or even the country level) is likely to be a less harmful approach than local or country-wide lockdowns.

4. Providing community isolation centres for asymptomatic, mild, or moderate COVID-19 patients who are unable or not safe to isolate at home, such as people who live in crowded conditions or those who need some basic care and treatment (CDC 2020). The risk of intra-family transmission is very high and is, indeed, currently the largest source of new infections in many countries.

5. Mandating the use of face masks in all indoor places where people interact and aiming to provide – free of charge – high-filtration FFP2 and FFP3 masks (with minimum filtration efficiencies of 94% and 99%, respectively) to those who must interact directly with others.

6. Prohibiting all unnecessary indoor gatherings and facilitating outdoor events with strict application of social distancing measures and mask mandates until working vaccines become widely available.

VOXEU

Now the Swedish model has failed, it's time to ask who was pushing it. Peter Geoghegan

When future historians come to write the story of Britain’s chaotic pandemic response, one question in particular will surely puzzle them: why, as the UK experienced one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks, did so many prominent public figures spend so much of 2020 talking about Sweden?

Almost as soon as Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown in late March, British newspaper columnists and professional contrarians demanded that the prime minister adopt “the Swedish model” – and they were still urging the same in September. We now know with certainty what public health experts have long predicted: a light-touch coronavirus approach does not work. Sweden has recorded far higher death rates than its Nordic neighbours, while suffering a similar economic hit. Even the country’s king thinks it has “failed”.

Länk The Guardian