I dont think this season will finish , Unless ....

For the premier league the problem is going to be getting the season started. Because they played out last season they let their players go on holidays and now they are finding that several players are going to be unavailable due having tested positive for the virus.

 

I don't think we should be judging the mortality within such small time periods to be honest. Unless the virus has changed it's still as deadly in the last 14 days as it was in March. I am very interested if anything indicates it has, it's my main bit of hope for normality at the moment.

You're right though that with all the restrictions in place and with people who are most vulnerable taking pretty extreme precautions (while people who feel less vulnerable take more risks) that the rate is now very similar to normal flu. If anything that shows how bad it would have been without all those actions.

Regardless of the death rate this season is going to be a mess. Outbreaks within the squads are going to cause fixture chaos or really unbalanced games. With the Premier Leagues squad sizes that's one issue but with the limited league 2 squads losing 5 or 6 players to isolation will be quite a barrier.

 

Man United have another player besides Pogba who went to a country that means he now has to quarantine. Arsenal have 2 players missing for tomorrows match. The England squad expects to lose up to 3 players due to players testing positive. So it is a little bit more widespread that just Man Utd

 

I thought the same myself. Its going to get very messy very quickly. I can see the season being extended by up to a month to play catch up. You could have some lucky teams who have completed their full fixture list and are in a promotion or relegation position and are sat watching as others around them play.

 

But 90% ,,of the population dont have immunity to covid 19

 

How do you know? (I'm playing devil's advocate here a little.) It's quite possible most people had immunity before the virus struck and its higher than 90% now. Numerous senior statistical epidemiologists have said that the virus figures accelerated slower than expected and it is behaving as if it is only finding that it can make 20% of the population ill enough to spread the disease (with the rest either not being infected at all or fighting it off asymptomatically and being effectively immune for modelling purposes).

We saw this with reports from the Oxford model in March that 50% might have been infected already - but the government chose to run with the Imperial model, which has since received a great deal of criticism. The Oxford model could still be correct. The virus does not seem as deadly as initially thought so 1000 deaths per day in early April could be from at least 100,000 infections per day in early March or late February at 1% mortality. It could even have peaked as high as 500k per day if mortality was as low as, say, 0.2% and the Oxford model would be right. We don't know because we weren't testing and we can't check properly. If antibodies fade significantly after a few weeks as is normal, many infected then might well test negative now. This would explain why blood donor antibody tests nationally have shown another fall to show 5.5% positivity from 8.3% 11 weeks ago. It might have been even higher in March. If you think 10%+ in March would still be too low to make a big difference, bear mind that scientific papers have suggested 2/3rds of adults might fight it off with T-cells only and most kids don't seem to generate antibodies either. That could be 75% of the population that effectively don't get the disease enough to notice and spread it. 10%+ back in March might then mean that those statistical epidemiologists and the Oxford model were right.

As I said, I'm not saying I believe this but it IS undoubtedly a possibility. It IS possible that we had 75% effectively immune and it is now up to 85% or 90% and the pool left to infect is only 10% or 15%. This could mean that Covid was a slightly worse than flu severity disease but it had a pool to attack that was twice as big as flu. Twice the pool could mean faster spread. Twice the pool and slightly higher severity might mean that ultimately it would kill 2.5 or 3 times as many as flu (mostly early but it might take years to complete). Once half that 25% pool had been infected, and so only 12.5% was left, it would behave pretty much like a slightly worse than average flu in future, once we unlock. It's possible that's where we are - maybe.

The 75% effective immunity might explain the differing racial susceptibility, too. There might be fewer immigrants in that 75%. It affects older people worse. Maybe people who have lived in the UK long enough will have fought off a similar virus in their youth which their immune system recognises as near enough the same, while immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent might not have met that old UK virus in the same numbers, so fewer immigrants were in the 75% protected pool and more were in the 25% vulnerable pool. Some UK residents from 50 years ago would still end up in the 25% that get sick but generate effective antibodies more quickly, once infected, than those not exposed. Even if going into hospital in similar numbers, those with no immune memory of a similar old UK virus could be slower to fight it off and so end up in ICUs more.

There are numerous possibilities of which this is only one that could explain what has happened and is still happening. There are others. It fits some models. Will we ever know who/which models are right or wrong? I don't know. I'm sure it's possible we never will find out - but it IS possible that 90% of people in the UK are now effectively immune IF we started at 75% or similar and half of those susceptible have had it..

 

That is not what I was saying. I suggested that only 25% of the population might need antibodies to fight it off. Scientific papers have suggested that 2/3rds of adults might fight it off quickly/asymptomatically with just T-cells (from some past interaction with similar coronavirus, perhaps) and many children seem to avoid the need to generate antibodies, too. That could leave 25% of the population left that need to dig deeper into their immune system toolkit and then generate antibodies to fight it off. We could be at 90% immunity but with maybe only a small fraction of the rest of the immune people using antibodies to fight it off, and some of their antibodies have faded so that they do not all now test positive. Tested antibody levels have been falling. London was 15.8% at peak and is now just over 8%. Again, I'm not saying I believe this, just that the science seems to allow it amongst numerous possibilities, so I would not rule it out until evidence suggests otherwise. It's a theory. I have no idea how many people can fight it off quickly without needing to resort to antibodies but plenty of scientists believe there are people that do so. The lacking information is the quantity. It seems some people had immunity before Covid broke out. We don't know how many.

 

If the protocols are the same as when the Premier league but if they are then it should be ok as only people who have been within 2m for 15 minutes would have to isolate which on the pitch is fine as that never happens, the concern will be in the changing rooms which i've got no idea what we and others especially in lower leagues will do once fans are back in as you barely have personal space in some changing rooms never mind social distance. Premier league and championship clubs used spare rooms and some used hospitality rooms for changing rooms but we wouldn't be able to do that, some even used temporary changing rooms but we won't have anywhere for that unless we can use the old club shop.
Reading the rule structures in the FA qualifying if you can't play a match due to infections then you forfeit the match but nothing about 1st round on, Carabao might have to follow that as there's no space for postponements. The league season is 34 weeks long, if you take out the 3 September midweeks for the Carabao, 5 midweeks for EFL Trophy (most won't need that) then 3 weekends for FA Cup (very few need more) this leave around 11 free fixture slots if you play Saturday/Tuesday though the season. That leaves a bit of breathing room but a bad spell of weather or a couple of 2 week periods of isolation could see some clubs getting close to having to play Saturday/Tuesday/Thursday near the end.

 

Now this bit I really would like to see!

I really enjoy your thoughts and knowledge on this but when it comes to drawing conclusions it can seem to conflict a little bit.

 

It's out there for debate. I'm sceptical by nature and I question lots of things. It do not claim to be right and I'm not really concluding now. I am probably more open-minded than I appear but I sometimes question what is generally accepted and people often find it "negative". I'll often offer alternative possiblities based on a great deal of reading for informatoin and debate. Sometimes people extol a theory and then start taking it almost as a fact or given when it's based on assumptions that could be questioned. I think mainstream media are doing that too much (not just Covid) . There's lots we don't know yet. I just question when I see theories passed as facts and put out alternative possibilities to see what (constructive) criticism and alternative information sources come in. That seems to be what Dennis is offering and I welcome it. I'm not here to argue or claim I'm right. I never said I was not repeating a hypothesis as part of an alternative possibility, I am. It could be right or it could easily be wrong. I'm curious if Dennis thinks there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of T-cell immunity. I'd like to see why the fairly limited/small sample evidence offered in the papers is not considered enough by his sources. I look forward to seeing his input and hope I can understand it. Although I'm not bad with statistical papers, some medical jargon gets hard to follow.

There's a bit about the T-cell immunity discussion here for anyone wanting to know what we're talking about.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/201833/cell-immunity-what-does-help-protect/

 

The T cell bit isnt about true immunity though is it? You still get the virus, you can still pass it on, you just fight it off easier as far as I saw. It was more a possible explanation of being asymptomatic rather than immune.

Being sceptical is one thing but there does seem to be a trend for very logical studies and then making a leap to what they could actually mean.

 

I'm not suggesting a yes or no answer. I think the answer is that the number of people possibly benefitting from T-cell immunity and the qualities of that immunity (including how much they spread it) are still very much under debate. Some people seem to think T-cells do bring immunity to some, and maybe not to others, but it might depend on the individual reponse and your definition of immunity. If you get infected and fight it off before you notice symptoms and do not become contagious to any significant degree are you immune? Are you EFFECTIVELY immune? To a statistical modeller, you probably are. Maybe not to an immunologist. Maybe it depends on the context. I'm just reading different sources and arguments and trying to keep an open mind.

 

Or a team could play and win first 10 games then not play another game all season. That team would be promoted as champions on the PPG rule.

 

It seems it's still under debate, then!




The EU's weekly Covid report bullet points indicate ongoing rises in new cases but not hospitalisations and deaths and this seems confirmed if you check data for each country. Some countries hospital trends are down after recent brief rises. Some have just continued down all summer. There's very little going on in hospitals outside of Eastern Europe. (Hospital activity data is displayed if you click on the third option for each country in the options lower down. Data is to Aug 26.) There's nothing significant yet in hospitals in UK, France, Italy, Germany while "wave 2" seems to be fading in Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Portugal. It's all been new cases and few deaths and is showing some signs of blowing over. There's only Spain shown a recent very modest rise in deaths and that is falling again in the last few days since this report.

We just need to watch France now to see if a huge rise in new cases there does anything. So far the rise in the 7-day average to nearly 5000 cases per day has seen deaths rise from 8 to 14 per day. In wave 1, the same rise in new cases saw deaths go from 0 to 650 (and then peak a week later at nearly 1000).

https://covid19-country-overviews.ecdc.europa.eu/

"Hospital and/or ICU occupancies and/or new admissions due to COVID-19 have recently increased in Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. No other increases have been observed, although data availability varies.

The 14-day COVID-19 death notification rate for the EU/EEA and the UK was four (country range: 0–31) per million population. The rate has been stable for 53 days.

Increases in the 14-day COVID-19 death notification rates against those reported seven days ago have been observed in one country (Spain). The rate in this country has been increasing for eight days.

Overall pooled estimates of all-cause mortality reported by EuroMOMO show a low level of excess mortality, confined to a few countries"