England Freedom Day, '21

[DzM]

Well this is weird ... After doing the obviously inadvisable, reopening All The Things as case rates are spiking, the case load is actually falling. Have the weak wildebeests now been culled and all that's left of England's vast hears are those with robust immune systems? Or are people just dying in their back gardens and going unreported?

I just don't understand how this is happening. Nothing makes sense any longer.

[firehazard]

Well this is weird ... After doing the obviously inadvisable, reopening All The Things as case rates are spiking, the case load is actually falling. Have the weak wildebeests now been culled and all that's left of England's vast hears are those with robust immune systems? Or are people just dying in their back gardens and going unreported?

Well. To be honest it's all pretty unclear. Before The Great Unlockdown, there was a definite upsurge in cases that's reckoned to have been at least partially attributed to the Euro 2020-One-Year-Late football. Which may have meant that the figures bucked what would have been the expected trend at that point. Recently they've gone down significantly from that latest peak, though it should also be noted that reported cases have in fact been going up again for the last two days. There has also been a reported decrease in the number of people being tested (maybe that's down to an "if-I've-got-it-I-don't-want-to-know-about-it" feeling). And hospital admissions have been heading upwards for a while now, and so have daily numbers of Covid-related deaths.

Vaccine rollout, which had been going pretty well, has now slowed significantly, and take-up hasn't been great among the under-30s. And of course we may not yet be seeing the full picture of what the results of The Opening of the Gates of Doom will be, as it'll take a while for cases to come through.

I just don't understand how this is happening. Nothing makes sense any longer.

This has in fact been my considered opinion on the world and life in general for some years now. So I agree.

[soulfinger]

If people stop getting tested, the number of positive tests falls.
More people are choosing not to know they have it and the spreading they are doing is not being picked up because those they pass it to don't get tested either. And so it goes on.

[Low D]

What's also happening here is that some vaccinated people have no symptoms. Symptoms are one of the big motivators for testing, so these people aren't getting tested, naturally enough. So nobody has a good handle on the real rate of infection right now.